He read about the swallows flying in and out of the little café in Smyrna, where the hajis sit and run their amber beads through their fingers and the merchants in turbans smoke their long pipes and talk earnestly with each other; he read about the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde, weeping granite tears in the desolation of its sunless exile, longing for the hot, lotus-covered Nile, where the sphinxes are and rose-red ibises and white vultures with golden claws and crocodiles with small beryl eyes crawling over the green, steaming mud; he began to ponder the verses that seem to draw their music from marble stained with kisses and tell us of the strange statue that Gautier compares to an alto voice, the “monstre charmant” that rests in the porphyry hall of the Louvre.

He read about the swallows flying in and out of the little café in Smyrna, where the hajis sit and run their agate beads through their fingers and the merchants in turbans smoke their long pipes and talk earnestly with each other; he read about the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde, weeping granite tears in the desolation of its sunless exile, longing for the hot, lotus-covered Nile, where the sphinxes are and rose-red ibises and white vultures with golden claws and crocodiles with small beryl eyes crawling over the green, steaming mud; he began to ponder the verses that seem to draw their music from marble stained with kisses and tell us of the strange statue that Gautier compares to an alto voice, the “monstre charmant” that rests in the porphyry hall of the Louvre.